The review will have to wait, as my Pixma Pro-1 is broken. Something is wrong with the paper feed as I am getting scraping down various kinds of paper. 285, 310 & 325 GSM paper are all showing the issue. The obvious cleaning and maintenance has been performed, and the issue is not improving. I have also attempted manual feed and rear feed, and that isn’t changing the outcome either.

Canon Pixma Pro-1 Review Sneak Peek

I have finally received my Canon Pixma Pro-1 A3+ printer, and an extra ink set. I’m very excited to get some printing done with it this weekend. This is a bit of a sneak peak, as I’ll work on the full review as I work with it this weekend.

First Impressions

Bring a friend to the store if you’re going to pick one up. The box is huge and it must weigh 80lbs. It’s probably the largest and heaviest A3+ printer ever made.

The printer itself is quite nice to look at it, very clean and looks extremely well built. Could a printer be beautiful? This one may be.

The box is packed nice and tidy and it was easy to get out and onto a table, or desk. The initial setup was a breeze, and the printer appears to be relatively quiet. The ink cartridges are pretty large for an A3+ printer and are very well built. I paid $400 for a set of 12 ink cartridges, I have no idea if that’s good until we get into how much ink the printer will use. I always found the Pixma 9500 Mark II to be ink hungry, or the cartridges too small. I always had to have lots of backups if I got into a weekend print session.

I will spend the next couple of days playing around and will have a full review ready to go Sunday night (pressure or what?).

canon rumors FORUM

LuckyRosco

Congradulations on the printer. I will be waiting for the review, even though I have just bought the Epson 4900 today. Canon just waited too long. I"ve pre-ordered mine back in October and Adorama still doesn't have it in stock yet.

I look forward to reading your thoughts. I just got an email saying my Pixma Pro-1 was shipped to me on Tuesday. It's traveling all the way across the country so hopefully UPS doesn't beat the crap out of it. I can't wait to unbox this baby!

The printer looks lovely. But I've given up having colour (or any) printers because I print so seldom that the jets dry up and get blocked and then cannot be unblocked at all. On these pricey Canon printers, is there the same problem? If not, how do they manage to avoid it?

Yeah, let us know how much money per full-colour A3+ photo print.

I currently pay £1.20 inc. VAT for 18"x12". It's gonna work out way more than that, I would imagine.

Does it print right to the borders of A3+ paper?

A3+ is not even photo aspect ratio (3:2); it's about 1.46:1.0 . So you end up with a border along one edge, right? (I had to look up the paper size on Wikipedia!)

Enjoy your printer!

Edit: Why is this thread in "Software & Accessories" when there is now a section called "Speedlites, Printers, Accessories"?

Edit 2: Figured it out: The "Speedlites, Printers, Accessories" is in the "Rumours" supersection. A printer review has nothing to do with rumours. Got it. But I still think the word "Printers" should appear in the name of one of the "Gear Talk" sections.

Thanks in advance Graig. I cant wait to read your thoughts on this pronter as I have yet to order mine. I was going to order it this week-end but now might wait for your first impression since this will be my first photo printer (always used printing services in the past, but now looking for more convenience on small size print).

cxpcman

I just got my pro 1 also and I have to say that I'm disappointed because of the paper feeding problems . I print a lot and the 9500's printers I got develop paper feeding problems in about 4 months of constant use but this printer in just 1 day something is wrong for sure there . In other aspect of the printer. It's huge , nice , sexy , quite , print quality is amazing, B and w printing is very nice compared to other color printers, Color printing is sharply the best I have seen and .... I like how it prints on matte media , the blacks are more blacks the grey is more grey and finally they get rid of the shiny black areas .

Canon make this printer pretty amazing they just forget to put a sticky feed roller

cxpcman, your Pixma Pro-1 has the same problem as the OP or a different one? This is not encouraging.

Printers are like camcorders used to be—a problem waiting to happen. Too many delicate mechanisms and finicky technologies mean it's just a matter of time before you have problems. I dream of a day when technology makes printing high quality photos as easy as using a laser printer.

My EPSON printers clogged like crazy. (I live in a dry climate.) I know they've gotten better but do a search for "EPSON 4900 clogging" and it is clear that there are still major issues; it is easy to find accounts of people working on their third and four replacement printers including the author of a glowing 4900 review who now seems to regret owning it at all. If not for clogging, I'd have a 4900 on my desk right now.

My HP B9180 photo printer delivers great output but it was built on the cheap. HP has backed about as far away as it could from this printer. It's official position now is if it breaks and it's out of warranty, haul it to the trash bin. They won't help. If not for this, I'd be looking at a Z3200 (admittedly, a different class of printer). But Z3200 owners know that printer isn't perfect either and if you don't have an extended warranty expect to pay through the nose for any repair, no matter how minor.

I've never owned a Canon printer but my experience with their other inkjets has been so positive that I really had high hopes for the Pixma Pro-1. It's a bummer to read two comments on the first page that report issues with it. It has taken Canon so long to make it available that they've had plenty of time to get things right. Mine is delivered in two days; it will be truly disappointing (and expensive) to have to ship it back across the country because of a problem right out of the box.

Logged

cxpcman

i don't know if it's the same problem .. but i for sure got a problem with the paper feed mechanism, it just doesn't feed the paper i have to clean the rubber roller at the middle every 2 sheets . i got the same problem before with my 9500 but after a long time and lots of use ..

Now it's been more than a week of use .. and i print 99% black and white and 1% color .. anndddddd oohh my god this printer waste a lot of ink .. i already have to change ALL the cartridges but wait i never use them!!!

I just don't understand why a 1K dollar printer fails at a 10cent rubber piece .

btw .. somebody know how to print an 11 x 17 because is not at the paper list!

and for the epson brand.. i hate their products, i already throw 4 scanners because of failure in the scanner mechanism, and also 3 printers .. because of clogged heads... i think their products are disposables .

cxpcman, your Pixma Pro-1 has the same problem as the OP or a different one? This is not encouraging.

Printers are like camcorders used to be—a problem waiting to happen. Too many delicate mechanisms and finicky technologies mean it's just a matter of time before you have problems. I dream of a day when technology makes printing high quality photos as easy as using a laser printer.

My EPSON printers clogged like crazy. (I live in a dry climate.) I know they've gotten better but do a search for "EPSON 4900 clogging" and it is clear that there are still major issues; it is easy to find accounts of people working on their third and four replacement printers including the author of a glowing 4900 review who now seems to regret owning it at all. If not for clogging, I'd have a 4900 on my desk right now.

My HP B9180 photo printer delivers great output but it was built on the cheap. HP has backed about as far away as it could from this printer. It's official position now is if it breaks and it's out of warranty, haul it to the trash bin. They won't help. If not for this, I'd be looking at a Z3200 (admittedly, a different class of printer). But Z3200 owners know that printer isn't perfect either and if you don't have an extended warranty expect to pay through the nose for any repair, no matter how minor.

I've never owned a Canon printer but my experience with their other inkjets has been so positive that I really had high hopes for the Pixma Pro-1. It's a bummer to read two comments on the first page that report issues with it. It has taken Canon so long to make it available that they've had plenty of time to get things right. Mine is delivered in two days; it will be truly disappointing (and expensive) to have to ship it back across the country because of a problem right out of the box.

cxpcman, I tend to print more color than b&w. It's primarily landscape images. I don't print in large volumes so I have to make sure I use the printer on a regular basis to keep everything operating smoothly. I'm looking forward to using this as a b&w printer though so my ratio may change.

I couldn't agree more about the 10 cent part in the $1,000 printer. I don't mind paying for quality—which is what I assumed I was doing with this printer. Now to be fair, I haven't printed anything with mine yet but it loaded the head alignment paper without any scuffing or abrasion so I don't think I have the OP's problem. Don't know about ink use or paper feeding. Are you feeding through the rear feed? Or the manual feed (which is actually behind the rear feed)? Are you printing with more than one sheet in the feeder at a time? What kind of paper? I'm not suggesting you're doing anything wrong. I just want to see if I can duplicate your issue.

As for the 11x17 paper setting, you may have to create a custom paper type if it's not on the list. Instructions for this are in the advanced section of the on-screen menu if I recall correctly. (I looked this up back when the printer was first announced.)

cxpcman

Hi T.linnwell the more i use it the more dissapointed i am. let me add some thoughts on this subject.

-Seems like this printer clean the head too often .. more often than needed . try to print large photos like 13x19 so head doesnt waste ink between print jobs .

i also.. was like .. what ? rear is front and manual is rear heheeh but that doesn't matter too much for me.

about the feeding problem seem like the area of contact of the rubber band is not much thats why it can't feed the paper correctly . also the fineart and matte papers seem to have some loose powder on them that's what clog the rubber band and the sticky capability, in other printers i got this issue but is normal after some time, the feeding mechanism needs to ble cleaned once in a while ... but whit the pro 1 i have to clean it every 2 or 3 sheets .. maybe 4 if i am lucky .. heeh ...

cxpcman, I tend to print more color than b&w. It's primarily landscape images. I don't print in large volumes so I have to make sure I use the printer on a regular basis to keep everything operating smoothly. I'm looking forward to using this as a b&w printer though so my ratio may change.

I couldn't agree more about the 10 cent part in the $1,000 printer. I don't mind paying for quality—which is what I assumed I was doing with this printer. Now to be fair, I haven't printed anything with mine yet but it loaded the head alignment paper without any scuffing or abrasion so I don't think I have the OP's problem. Don't know about ink use or paper feeding. Are you feeding through the rear feed? Or the manual feed (which is actually behind the rear feed)? Are you printing with more than one sheet in the feeder at a time? What kind of paper? I'm not suggesting you're doing anything wrong. I just want to see if I can duplicate your issue.

As for the 11x17 paper setting, you may have to create a custom paper type if it's not on the list. Instructions for this are in the advanced section of the on-screen menu if I recall correctly. (I looked this up back when the printer was first announced.)

I have to say that I am disappointed too. Different issue though. Before I bought the Pixma Pro-1 I was really on the fence about whether or not it could print large enough. Ideally, I wanted a 17" printer but I didn't want an Epson. Since this Canon has a 14" carriage and the printer manual says that I can create custom paper sizes up to 14 x 23 or 12.95 x 26.65 (depending on which tray is used), I figured this was close enough.

Only after paying for the printer and having it shipped 3,000 miles to me did I discover what the manual doesn't say anywhere: You are not allowed to create custom paper sizes for Canon "art" papers or for ANY THIRD PARTY PHOTOGRAPHIC PAPER. Even though the printer has a nice 14" wide carriage, the largest uncropped (3:2) image I can print is 10.82 x 16.24 on a 13 x 19 cut sheet. Let me repeat that: The largest I can print any image on "art" paper or third party photo paper with my new $1,000 printer is less than 11" wide.

Just to be clear about the math, with no custom paper sizes allowed—and for all practical purposes this is the case—one is limited to the largest standard cut sheet size of 13 x19 (A3+). After subtracting out the mandatory 1.38" top and bottom margins, that leaves a maximum width of 16.24" and a corresponding height of 10.24" due to the shape of a 3:2 DSLR sensor. The maximum custom page sizes listed in the manual turn out to be largely meaningless.

There are other ramifications to this besides maximum print size. Want to print out a letter-sized test page? On this printer you'll have to use legal-sized paper to account for the large mandatory margins. Want to print a proof? It can be no smaller than 8.5 x 11 if you're using art paper or any third party photo paper.

I was so convinced this had to be wrong that I called the Pro Series support department and talked to two different people. The first one insisted that there had to be a way around this. The second one took the time to contact an engineer to confirm that, no, there was no way around it.

Potential Pro-1 owners who are happy with this paper selection are in great shape. If, however, you imagine wanting to use Canon's higher end Museum Etching paper, Photo Rag, or maybe a third party photographic paper like EPSON's amazing Exhibition Fiber or canvas, then my previous comments apply.